Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Atari ST w/ Hatari

Like most people, I've spent the recent years emulating an Atari ST and, since starting AtariCrypt, I have also been asked tons of questions about emulation. These are often about TOS versions and other various settings within Hatari. So let's keep this simple for a real-basic outline of what you should know to get started playing the awesome range of Atari ST games on your Mac (PC and Linux should be the same but I cannot confirm 100%, sorry)

Firstly, there are two basic models of the Atari ST. The original Atari ST and the enhanced Atari STE (Blitter, more colours, DMA audio, analogue controls, hardware scrolling)

1) If you want to play a commercial game then the chances are it'll be for the original Atari ST model.
2) If you want to delve in deeper (shareware games, music, demos) then you should probably emulate the Atari STE.

Spec requirements?

1) For the ST, I would recommend you choose 1 or 2mb RAM with TOS 1.02

2) For the STe, I would recommend you chose 1 or 2mb RAM but with TOS 1.62

For the most part, these settings will work really well. I personally tend to stick with a basic setup of Atari STe with 2mb RAM and TOS 1.62 to play floppy disk games.

What do I download?

1) Download the emulator itself - Hatari or NoSTalgia (major update due soon)
2) Grab yourself a copy of The Operating System (TOS) and there are lots here on ATARIWorld.
3) Many websites have ST games to download but the best is Stonish and Old Games Finder links to many archives.

My Hatari settings!

I have captured several screenshots of my own Hatari preferences. There is nothing mind-blowing here, I simply hoped this might be of some use to newcomers. Any questions then feel free to comment, below :-)